Statement

My sculptures are reinterpreted organic forms and landscapes. I find geological formations and spaces of growth (seeds, wombs, nests) captivating and create sculptures to further explore their forms. These spaces that cannot be entered as a fully formed being. I play with the notion of an unreachable space by making adult human scale unreachable spaces and smaller repeated unreachable spaces. I use repetition in the same way that nature does, with irregularities that make each piece beautifully imperfect. In the creation of these spaces I explore the tension between the industrial and the organic visually and conceptually. I draw inspiration from natural forms that I translate through industrial processes, with an industrial material to form organic objects. Then I paint the work bright colors to abstract it from its natural inspiration. The industrial and organic back and forth further emphasizes the idea of an unreachable nourishing space. In the pieces I create, even if you could enter, you would still find yourself unnourished.

Bio

Lily Erb is an artist and nurturer. Grass-fed and locally-raised in Charlottesville, Va, she flew east to attend Hampshire College in Western Massachusetts for her undergraduate degree where she began welding and eventually came to think of herself as an artist. Though she spent the requisite post-college year avoiding home, she’s proud to be back in the C-Ville again. She spends her days welding in her studio in Belmont and taking care of two small and wonderful children.